Religiosity, Spirituality, and Academic Resilience: A study of First-Generation black students

Abstract

First-generation university students are believed to face a myriad of challenges around the world. Although religiosity and spirituality are believed to serve as protective factors in times of adversity, there is little literature on how religiosity and spirituality impact the academic resilience of first-generation university students in South Africa. Black students in South Africa have historically been disadvantaged due to imbalances created by the apartheid system. This study aimed to examine the religiosity, spirituality, and academic resilience of first-generation black students. A correlational research design was used with a web-based questionnaire that combined demographics, Daily Spiritual Experience, Centrality of Religiosity and the Academic Resilience Scale. Data were collected from 239 North-West University (NWU) first-generation black students, aged 18 years or older, with voluntary convenience sampling used. The study adopted a quantitative approach. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis and inferential analysis that included bivariate correlation and hierarchical multiple regression. The respondents reported a high mean religiosity of M = 4.1, SD = 0.6, with alpha ~0.76 on the Centrality of Religiosity Scale. A high score of 4.52, median 4.65, on the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale suggests generally frequent spiritual experiences. Participants scored a mean of 2.42 on the Academic Resilience Scale. This suggests that the participants have a moderate level of academic resilience. Spirituality was positively correlated with resilience (r = .42, p < 0.01), while religiosity showed a weaker relationship. The study contributes to the growing corpus of research examining the relationship between university students’ academic drive and religiosity.